Full Frame announces films for festival

Filmmaker Dawn Porter’s critically acclaimed “Gideon’s Army” will be the opening-night film April 4, the first night of this year’s Full Frame Documentary Film Festival. The festival announced its full program lineup of new feature and short films Thursday.

“Gideon’s Army,” an HBO Documentary Film, follows the personal stories of Travis Williams, Brandy Alexander and June Hardwick, three young public defenders who are part of a small group of idealistic lawyers in the Deep South challenging the assumptions that drive a criminal justice system strained to the breaking point.

Subjects Brandy Alexander and Travis Williams will be in attendance. A moderated

conversation with the filmmakers and subjects will follow the screening.

Specific screening times and venues will be announced with the overall schedule Thursday. This year’s festival will be held April 4-7 at various downtown venues. Tickets go on sale March 25.

The festival previously announced its “Full Frame Tribute” program, featuring the past films and a world premiere film from Academy Award winning filmmaker Jessica Yu, and a “Thematic Program” curated by filmmaker Amir Bar-Lev.

The “Invited Program” features 24 films screening out of competition. Included in this list are the festival’s “Center Frame” screenings, which feature moderated panel discussions following the films. These screenings take place in Fletcher Hall at The Carolina Theatre. “Center Frame” programs and special guests will be announced in the coming weeks.

The “New Docs” program includes 51 titles (36 features and 15 shorts) from across the United States and around the world. Nearly all of the films are screening in North Carolina for the first time.

A few films in each category are listed below (synopses provided by the Full Frame Festival). For a complete list, visit www.fullframefest.org.

New documentaries:

-- “12 O'Clock Boys” (Director: Lotfy Nathan). A struggling adolescent seeks acceptance from a group of extreme dirt bikers, an illegal gang seen to be terrorizing the streets of Baltimore.

-- “After Tiller” (Directors: Martha Shane, Lana Wilson). After the murder of their friend and colleague Dr. George Tiller, only four physicians continue to perform late-term abortions, risking their lives for women’s right to choose.

-- “Dance for Me” (Dans for mig) (Director: Katrine Philp). A teenage Russian dancer relocates to Denmark to live with his adolescent partner so they can prepare for a series of prestigious ballroom championships.

-- “Downloaded” (Director: Alex Winter). The history of Napster, from its humble chatroom beginnings to its takedown at the hands of a music industry that didn’t know what hit it.

-- “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” (Director: Scott Calonico). Diplomacy, arm-twisting, and gastronomy as lifted from LBJ’s daily diaries and recorded phone

conversations and animated by archival photographs.

Invited films:

-- “Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me” (Directors: Drew DeNicola, Olivia Mori). Myth and music collide in this story of the influence and impact of revered power-pop band Big

Star, featuring never-before-seen footage, photos, and interviews.

-- “The Editor and the Dragon: Horace Carter Fights the Klan” (Directors: Martin M. Clark, Walter E. Campbell) A smalltown newspaper editor in North Carolina stands up to the KKK and is awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1953 for his courageous and tireless dissent.

-- “Manhunt” (Director: Greg Barker). This spellbinding film dissects the painstaking search for Osama bin Laden, which originated with the “Sisterhood,” a remarkable team of CIA analysts.

-- “Venus and Serena” (Directors: Maiken Baird, Michelle Major). This unprecedented look at the tennis legends’ lives on and off the court is accentuated by the